Agile Portfolio Management - APM€¦ · A portfolio of 12 projects tackling people, process,...

Agile Portfolio Management

APM Portfolio Mgt SIG

Steve Leary & Jason Zawadzki

May 2018

© APM Portfolio Management SIG 2018

What is it, and how can we make it work?

Conference workshop

Contents

▪ Introduction

▪ Examples of current thinking

– SAFe, Agile Business Consortium, Portfolio Mgt SIG

▪ Practical Example

▪ Suggested themes

▪ Theme development workshops

▪ Findings and conclusions

▪ Next steps

Copyright APM Portfolio Management SIG 20182

Introduction

▪ Discussion - do you use ‘agile’?

– How?

– Anyone use agile portfolio management?

▪ Discussion - what do you want from this session?

– Flipchart aims & objectives


Current thinking – 1 - SAFe


Scaled Agile Framework

Current thinking - 2 - Agile Business ConsortiumSix core behaviours

▪ Focus on creation of value

▪ Review the portfolio continuously

▪ Involve the right people to shape & manage the portfolio

▪ Clearly & continuously demonstrate that the portfolio is delivering optimum value

▪ Encourage innovation & creativity

▪ Encourage collaboration and empowerment


Current thinking – 3 – APM Portfolio Mgt SIGManaging the hybrid portfolio

▪ Manage levels of certainty

▪ Support both iterative & ‘single drop’ benefits

▪ Understand the role of stakeholder

▪ Factor in the different risk profiles


UK Wide Results for 15/16: Iterative delivery, built on core agile behaviours

and team based problem solving, delivered benefits early and often over

12 months

Field Transformation

Current condition:

FTE field force distributed across

the UK.

Service Journey involved an

average of x visits, multiple

customer touch points, and a lead

time in the field of y days.

Very little understanding of how the

operation worked

Change commissioned

Goal:

1 visit under 1 day within 12 months

Means:

A portfolio of 12 projects tackling

people, process, technology,

organisation, and culture.

Transformation road map at portfolio and programme level to navigate and

focus initiatives to deliver incremental benefits

7

Case study example

From a standing start to transformed customer experience and cost base

1) We were ‘relentlessly’ outcome focused with all

decisions made relative to our goals and critical

success factors

2) We created a delivery framework that is both

stable and flexible. Dynamic Ways of Working to

enable us to rapidly change to differing conditions

e.g. actual benefit realisation, customer feedback,

behavior of regulators, and emerging risks, but

with a Stable Backbone that maintained control

and enabled delivery at scale.

3). We moved away from RAG status as our core

indictor of progress to objective evidence of

working outputs and outcomes, termed Learning

Milestones and Proof Points. Preferring pilots and

trials over extensive analysis and design

4) Continuous improvement at pace was critical to

these results. We became hunters of problems,

not farmers. We built a data driven, yet pragmatic

Predictive Capability and employed Team Based

Problem Solving as a core part of our ways of

working. This enabled continuous iteration of the

configuration of the portfolio

8

Case study example

What did we do differently? Embraced agile principles at portfolio and programme level

Integrated Agile and Traditional Environment

Incremental & Iterative Delivery Engine

Stable Backbone

Dynamic Ways of Working

Predictive Capability

Team Based Problem Solving

Workshop themes for discussion

▪ Ensure flexibility & adaptability

▪ Hybrid portfolios - reporting and the PMO

▪ Increase predictability

▪ Agile risk management


15 minutes from experience and creative thought on how to do

each of these and what’s important.

Summary

Findings

Conclusions

Questions

Next steps


APPENDIX

Copyright APM Portfolio Management

SIG 201811

SAFe


Portfolio SAFe Highlights

This Portfolio configuration builds on Essential SAFe by adding the following Portfolio-level concerns:

• Lean Budgets - Lean budgeting allows fast and empowered decision-making, with appropriate financial control and

accountability.

• Value Streams - Every value stream has funding for the people and resources necessary to build solutions that deliver

the value to the business or customer. Each is a long-lived series of steps (system definition, development, and

deployment) that build and deploy systems that provide a continuous flow of value.

• Portfolio Kanban – It makes the work of the portfolio visible and creates Work-in-Process (WIP) limits to assure that

demand matches the actual value stream capacities.

The following roles provide the highest level of accountability and governance, including the coordination of multiple

value streams:

• Lean Portfolio Management (LPM) - This function represents the individuals with the highest level of decision-making

and financial accountability for a SAFe portfolio. This group is responsible for three primary areas:

• Strategy and investment funding

• Agile program guidance

• Lean governance

• Epic Owners - Take responsibility for coordinating portfolio epics through the Portfolio Kanban system.

• The Enterprise Architect - This person or group of people work across value streams and programs to help provide

the strategic technical direction that can optimize portfolio outcomes. The enterprise architect often acts as an epic owner

for enabler epics

Portfolio SAFe helps align portfolio execution to the enterprise strategy, by organizing Agile development around the

flow of value, through one or more value streams. It provides business agility through the principles and practices for

portfolio strategy and investment funding, Agile program guidance, and Lean governance.

Agile Business ConsortiumSix core behaviours

1 Focus on creation of value

Base business strategy to create value & keep relevant as it evolves

− Ensure the organization’s purpose is clearly & simply defined & understood

− Ensure organizational values & behaviours are clearly & simply defined & understood

− Ensure required outcomes are clearly defined at a high level & understood for the key stakeholders & are regularly reviewed

− Ensure there is a clear vision for the organization which is simple & easily communicated

− Ensure the vision reflects the organization’s purpose, values & required outcomes & is well communicated

− Ensure there is an evolving business strategy, with strategic goals which reflect the vision

− Limit the amount of work in progress to what is practicable



2 Review the portfolio continuously

Continuously evaluate portfolio to reflect evolving strategy & changing environment

− Ensure portfolio is continuously aligned to business strategy driving delivery of value

− Priority decisions on delivery of right value at right time

− Plan for value to be delivered incrementally

− Effective measures and performance indicators

− Ensure content and prioritization of the portfolio is iterative and frequent

− Ensure prioritisation criteria are clearly and transparently defined

− Only create plans to a horizon that makes sense, v annual or other long periodic model

− Ensure feedback is continuous, inspect & adapt the portfolio to changing circumstances



3 Involve the right people to shape & manage the portfolio

Ensure the right people are involved, use experience, capabilities & aspirations to improve chances of successful outcomes− Plan availability of right people at right time− Identify perhaps unknown capabilities that people have− Identify capabilities that will be needed &are not currently available− Recognise people’s capabilities & aspirations. This motivates them− Attract and retain the right people for the organization− Remove silo driven portfolios & encourage portfolios based on value driven strategy & cross-

functional teams

4 Clearly & continuously demonstrate that the portfolio is delivering optimum value

Always be able to demonstrate the portfolio is delivering the right value at the right time− Use agile concepts of empowerment, transparency & openness to make status of portfolio teams

clear & visible to all− Use info that comes directly from the teams carrying out the change− Ensure most appropriate business owner takes responsibility for incorporating change and

delivering benefits



5 Encourage innovation & creativity

Welcome new ideas from anywhere at any time− Ensure innovation & creativity is welcomes & encouraged− Define clearly & simple process for introducing & evaluating new ideas & make sure it is well

communicated. Treat ideas respectfully & with an open mind− Recognise & rewards organizational behaviours that encourage innovation

6 Encourage collaboration and empowerment

Create an environment where empowered people from multiple disciplines across the organisation collaborate to deliver change− Create self-motivated cross-functional teams & empower them to deliver change− Ensure everyone understands that achieving business strategy and goals is primary focus− Consider whether more benefits mat result from someone else’s change, not yours− Build culture of trust & ownership− Ensure commercial arrangements support & encourage agility− Shape reward systems to encourage collaboration, empowerments & a cross-functional focus


WORKSHOP OUTPUT

Copyright APM Portfolio Management

SIG 201817

Conference workshop

During the workshop the team identified 9 areas of interest related to agile portfolio management and broke into teams to highlight how these should be

addressed and what the key issues were.

The following slides summarise the findings.

The numbers in parentheses are the table numbers at the conference workshop

Agile assurance (1)

▪ Agree the period for when assurance should come in to review progress made

▪ Be focused on outcomes/outputs and capability

▪ Portfolio level

– so should be sizable chunks/sprints as opposed to reviewing daily activities

– not programme & project, so focused on overall value and strategic direction

How do you run a hybrid portfolio (2)?

▪ With flexibility

▪ Have a common set of principles

▪ Ensure empowerment, so people speak up if it’s not working

▪ Take into account the culture

▪ Develop a comparative way of measuring value across agile & waterfall

▪ Prioritise to corporate goals

▪ Risks based value, e.g. MVP (min viable product) low risk, so risk adjusted benefits

▪ Assess % likelihood of delivering more benefits in agile (i.e. above MVP)

Transforming to a hybrid (3)

▪ Educate first

▪ Phase the shift of the portfolio to hybrid

▪ Need to include the full team and the business

▪ Frame classic PMO activities in agile language

– Sprint cadence, backlog, value delivered

▪ Bust the myth that agile = no reporting

▪ Process for prioritising agile activity

– E.g. digital delivery, whole business dependency

▪ Engender a learning environment, instigate a good, positive feedback mechanism to inform prioritisation and capabilities

Business buy in (4)

▪ Agnostic of method

▪ Avoid too much agile terminology

▪ Portfolio role to orchestrate projects to avoid business disruption

▪ Understanding value creation and definition

▪ Understanding stakeholder motivation

▪ PM chooses best way & aligns with portfolio guidelines

▪ Stakeholder engagement in agile tends to be greater and more intense (need to explain to stakeholders)

Governance (5)

▪ Role of governance– Change of mindset on control

▪ Seniors need confidence that:– The right investments are being made

– The team is functioning well

– The team is delivering

▪ Projects need direction, praise, and ability to ask for help

▪ Fit into the monthly governance cycle– Not about holding to account

– Failing to deliver is learning

– Focus on business value

▪ Integrated into the governance cycle

▪ ‘Lead’ v ‘lag’ metrics

Flexibility and adaptability (6)

▪ How to build into the portfolio responsiveness to change in a mixed portfolio

▪ Governance and authorisations set at the start

▪ Culture to allow change

▪ Should not be afraid to stop

▪ Keep stakeholders/sponsors involved & understand their expectations

▪ Early outcomes desired for agile

▪ Later outcomes for waterfall

▪ Manage jargon

▪ Regular reviews, and consider the internal and external review environment

▪ Focus on review of outcomes & future benefits, & potential impacts to the outcomes & benefits

Hybrid reporting and PMO (7)

▪ 3 fundamental questions to answer

– Are we on track?

– Are we enabling and realizing benefits?

– To what degree are we moving towards achieving the strategic objectives?

▪ Link agile projects to strategic objectives

– Each sprint is a measure of value towards strategic objectives

▪ ‘Lead’ and ‘lag’ metrics

▪ ‘Will we meet the goals?’

▪ Is this project essentially to meet the goals or to meet intermediate milestones to achieve goals?

▪ Is this essential to meet goals? (If not why do it?)

▪ Has the environment changed or goals evolved?

▪ Have priorities changed or are they changing?

▪ What benefits have been achieved, what’s the risk to benefits and time to realizing benefits?

▪ Each sprint is a measure of value towards achieving the strategic objectives

Improve predictability – 1 of 2 (8)

▪ Need a skilled analytical capability within the PMO

▪ Need stability of teams (management and delivery)

▪ Early stage intervention

▪ Good historic datasets

▪ Whole lifecycle tracking and monitoring ‘is this better than before?’

▪ As you are valuing improvements you celebrate and publicise to gain buy-in

▪ Managing expectations and not putting all your eggs in one basket

▪ Educate the business and agree the appetite for risk

▪ Key are analysis of the needs, horizon scanning & a good understanding of business

▪ Potential use of reference class forecasting

Improve predictability – 2 of 2 (11)

▪ … of operational performance

▪ Understand what you will measure

▪ Collect tangible data with simple points

▪ Optimise dynamically

▪ Break it down into chunks

▪ Understand dependencies

▪ Experimenting and understanding the culture

▪ Stable teams

▪ Managing the pipeline/horizon scanning

▪ Outlook, forecast and compare to actual.

▪ Feedback loops to inform forecasts

Agile risk mgt (9)

▪ Potentially more difficult to understand the risks they are running with

▪ Need more frequent risk review approach

▪ Aggregation of risks important at a portfolio level

▪ Question: how important are individual sprint risks?

▪ Don’t understand all the risks at the outset and hence can’t quantify the overall risks to achieving the outcomes and benefit realisation

▪ Risk profiles

▪ At portfolio level

– risk to not achieving the strategy and goals

– Risk of not delivering the overall benefits

▪ Take action, e.g. reprioritise if risks show better solution

Agile Portfolio Management

Conference workshop

APM Portfolio Mgt SIG

Steve Leary & Jason Zawadzki

May 2018

© APM Portfolio Management SIG 2018

Agile Portfolio Management - APM€¦ · A portfolio of 12 projects tackling people, process,...

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